GAZA CITY (CNN) -- A leader of Hamas, the militant group that last week became the controlling force in Palestinian politics, laid out a series of conditions Sunday that he said could lead to years of co-existence alongside Israel.
The conditions included Israel's retreating to its pre-1967 borders and releasing Palestinian prisoners...
I'm glad they used that word "retreating," because that's precisely one of the reasons why it's not going to happen.
There certainly won't be a withdrawal from further territory anytime soon. But a truce offer--even if it's just a tactic, even if they'd use anything they were given in order to try to get still more--at least involves a recognition on Hamas' part of their own relative weakness, when compared w/Israel. ..That's a start, maybe. I'm only saying this 'cause on the Israeli TV news last night, the Arab Affairs commentator tried to give it a (cautiously) positive spin as well. He said: "maybe there's an implicit recognition in the truce offer of our right to exist within _some_ borders, as distinct from the usual call for our destruction." ..But I'll admit that it's probably grasping at straws. Esp. given what the Hamas charter says: http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm
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There certainly won't be a withdrawal from further territory anytime soon. But a truce offer--even if it's just a tactic, even if they'd use anything they were given in order to try to get still more--at least involves a recognition on Hamas' part of their own relative weakness, when compared w/Israel. ..That's a start, maybe. I'm only saying this 'cause on the Israeli TV news last night, the Arab Affairs commentator tried to give it a (cautiously) positive spin as well. He said: "maybe there's an implicit recognition in the truce offer of our right to exist within _some_ borders, as distinct from the usual call for our destruction." ..But I'll admit that it's probably grasping at straws. Esp. given what the Hamas charter says:
http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm